Slowly ramping up to the release in March 2019. :yes:
]]>Three Kingdomsedyzmedievalhttps://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/153721-TW-3-Kingdoms-Hero-TrailerJust a Thought - Total War: Huángdìhttps://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/153699-Just-a-Thought-Total-War-Hu%C3%A1ngd%C3%AC?goto=newpost
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 02:34:21 GMTI just remembered a thought I had a long time ago while playing the original Rome; that the Chinese Spring and Autumn/Warring States Period would be a really cool setting for the series.
Picture it, the game starts in 722 BCE, the year Duke Yin of Lu begins keeping his record which becomes the...I just remembered a thought I had a long time ago while playing the original Rome; that the Chinese Spring and Autumn/Warring States Period would be a really cool setting for the series.

Picture it, the game starts in 722 BCE, the year Duke Yin of Lu begins keeping his record which becomes the standard source for later histories. Several decades have passed since the 771 BCE sacking of the Zhōu capital by the Marquess of Shēn and his allied Quǎnróng "barbarians", who overwhelmed the Zhōu chariots with heavy cavalry from the steppes. The Zhōu king has lost much of his power outside of a small royal demesne despite claiming the mandate of heaven.

Though the Fēngjiàn feudal system remains largely intact in name, the quilt of feudal states strewn across China for the sake of the country's defense have grown increasingly independent and distinct as cultural entities, producing philosophers espousing unique worldviews and visions for the duty of a good ruler and the shape of an ideal state.

I imagine that some turns into the game an election is held which simulates the election of Duke Huán of Qí as Hegemon. Perhaps whichever Han-culture state is most popular with the other factions nominally under Zhōu would become hegemon, and that the cycle of the most popular and powerful state becoming hegemon would continue for some number of cycles until the majority of the states are consolidated and only a few remain.

-Chǔ (very powerful and culturally diverse southern state, birthplace of the founder of Daoism, Lǎozǐ, and the great poet and statesman Qū Yuán)

-Yān (a state on the northern periphery, with a unique maritime frontier culture and advanced defensive walls, as well as knife and tea currency)

-Wú (whose king Sun Tzu served, often at war with Chǔ)

-Yuè (a unique hybrid of Han and what would become Vietnamese culture in the southern frontier)

-The unique frontier kingdoms of the Sichuan valley, the walled cities of Shǔ and the slave state of Bā

-The royal demesne of the King of Zhōu, to which the Han-culture factions pay homage.

-The state of Qín, on the western frontier and settled by ethnically distinct semi-outsiders.

as well as other minor states which could be represented, like Suí, Lái, Xú, Zōu, or Téng; or Jì, which was the name of the city that would become modern Beijing, which began its life as a free town on the what was then the shore of the sea, one of bronze age China's few city states. etc.

And most importantly, the state of Jìn, which is among the most powerful of all the states and has its own internal fiefdoms with loyalty to the Jìn lord. Jìn itself would be like Rome in vanilla Rome 1, which inevitably breaks up as it did historically. Wèi, Hán, and Zhào, which each become powers of their own. This event ushers in the end of the Spring and Autumn Period and the beginning of the Warring States Period.

Happenings in the state of Zhào also cause a substantial rift between the Warring States Era and the period before, which is the adoption of mounted heavy cavalry by King Wǔlíng, who ordered his soldiers to dress like barbarians and adopt mounted archery tactics which, while unpopular, proved devastatingly successful (Wǔlíng was the first Zhào ruler who dared to style himself King) and rapidly caused the disappearance of the chariot from the Chinese battlefield even before the invention of the stirrup, along with the beginning of the Iron Age in China around the same time, which revolutionized the quality of weapons.

Developments in agriculture caused populations to rise rapidly and cultivation to become more efficient with increasingly good flood management, defensive border walls began to be constructed by the various states, not just in the north; many of which merged over time. And the warring states each produced large numbers of great philosophers and religious teachers who founded schools of political and economic thought, aesthetics, epistemology, military theory, ethics and metaphysics which contended and formed the foundation of China's immensely important philosophical tradition.

The various states each developed their own regional identities which continue to exist to this day, a rich diversity of culture, religion, language, and ethnicity. Towards the end of the period a small group of the most powerful of them controlled the majority of the country, resulting in a map like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrin...sAll260BCE.jpg

"Barbarian" peoples also harass the borders of China and can be learned from, bring trade, bring allies or bring ruin. Whoever eliminates or vassalizes all their Han-culture rivals and takes the capital of Zhōu becomes the first Emperor of China, whose philosophy would define the course of a civilization.
]]>Three KingdomsDorozhandhttps://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/153699-Just-a-Thought-Total-War-Hu%C3%A1ngd%C3%AC